FastCompany Builds Them Up, Then Knocks Facebook Down

After electing Facebook as the most innovative company of 2010, FastCompany magazine seems intent on bringing them back down to earth. In recent articles the magazine that claims to uncover the best and “next” practices have reacted aggressively to the privacy issues of the company and even gone as far as describing the founder Mark Zuckerberg as a sweaty, awkward fumbler.

Despite the content of ‘The World’s Most Innovative Companies 2010′ being advertised across the FastCompany site, the magazine seems to forget their adoration for the company when they compared the actions of Mark Zuckerberg to “every great Valley CEO.” In their praise of Facebook, FC said:

Today, Facebook feels the way Google, Intel, and Microsoft likely did at similar stages in their own life cycles — still agile enough to invent the future, but sufficiently stable to handle some real turbulence.

But that doesn’t stop them in a later article highlighting Zuckerberg’s uncomfortableness when interviewed at the D8 conference:

Unlike his D8 predecessor Steve Jobs, who spoke eloquently, frankly, and insightfully during his interview, Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg seemed to have trouble answering questions concisely, and his on-stage sweating has made for a few pun headlines (“Great Perspirations,” remarked Forbes)… When asked what instant personalization really means, he “fumbles” (in the words of All Things D) and speaks abstractly about “the people-centric Web.” Several references are made to his excessive sweating–I don’t want to draw any particular conclusions, but his perspiration was even mentioned on stage when moderator Walt Mossberg asked if he’d like to remove his sweatshirt. All Things D says he’s “literally dissolving in a lake of his own sweat.”

Maybe the writers at FastCompany feel that they must act as journalists and report the facts even if it means undermining previous point of view. Or maybe editors quickly realized guessed wrong in their most innovative companies and are covering their tracks…

FastCompany